MALFY

While popularly thought of as a Dutch invention, it is in Italy that the true origins of gin can be found. From as far back as the 11th Century, Italian monks made a crude spirit infused with juniper, eventually even coming to believe in it as a medicine to combat the Black Death.

This long tradition of distillation was still in practice when, in 1906, Fratelli Ferrero di Riccardo, a family from Piedmont established in the wine and vermouth business, founded a distillery in Moncalieri, just outside the city of Torino. The distillery was purchased in 1992 by Carlo Vergnano and remains a family owned operation run by Carlo, his wife Piera and their daughter Rita.

Since then the distillery’s brand, Malfy, has become internationally famous for its range of premium gins. Malfy now produces four superb spirits: the Originale (think traditional dry gin), the Con Limone (made using a citrus extract, this is gin meets limoncello), the Gin Rosa (Sicilian pink grapefruit) and the Con Arancia (Sicilian blood orange).

Different botanicals are utilised across the range, but it is the lemon sourced from the stunning Amalfi Coast that gives the company their name and the gins their defining quality. Citrus forward, bright and fresh, these are quintessential gins to sip on a hot summer afternoon.